Lycee confirmed for Brent Town Hall

The Kilburn Times LINK today confirms my story of December 21st 2012 that an independent French school has purchased Brent Town Hall.

Preston Library lives again for National Libraries Day!

Next Saturday, 9th February, is National Libraries Day. The Friends of Preston Library  will be celebrating with a special children's event in the  former Preston Library building on Carlton Avenue East.  The building is now housing extra classrooms for Preston Park Primary School and the Friends are very grateful to the headteacher, Mr John Redpath, for allowing them to use the building in this way.

The event will run from 12pm - 4pm and will include story-telling with a local author, an art corner, the pop-up library - and they are especially pleased to be able to welcome well-known children's writer, Saman Shamsie, who will be reading from her own stories and from the new Puffin Book of Magic Stories.

Do bring your children along to the library building on Saturday and help to celebrate the importance of libraries and reading in our community.

Dog walkers to be restricted to 4 dogs per person in Brent's parks

Following a review of the Dog Control Orders introduced last year,  Brent officers are recommending that the maximum number of dogs walked by one person in Brent's parks and open spaces is reduced from four to six. LINK

This follows complaints from the public about bigger packs of dogs nor being under control, consultation with the Kennel Club and discussion with insurers of  professional dog walkers.

Enforcement continues to be an issue.

Headline figures from the Brent Budget paint a dismal picture

If you are going to either of the public meetings about the 2013-14 Brent budget next week you may want to have a look at the documentation that is available on the Council website.  It is available on the Agenda for the February 11th Executive HERE and is item 21 of a 28 item agenda.

I will try and highlight the main points here.  As previously mentioned the Council Tax is unchanged despite a rise being built into earlier assumption and the Council intends to keep reserves at the current level.

Adult Social Care continues to be one of the main pressures on the budget. Here is a summary of the changes between 2012-13 and 2013-14:

Click on image to enlarge

The forecast of savings required until 2017, which now assume no rise in Council Tax, are:

Click on image to enlarge

One of the main clues to where the cuts will actually fall is on this grid LINK with an assumption of  substantial cuts in costs in 2014-15 through the out-sourcing of integrated health and the huge Public Realm contract which covers waste, recycling, street cleansing. parks maintenance and Brent Housing Partnership. The move to the Civic Centre is expected to yield net savings of  £500,000 in 2014-15 although I seem to remembers a figure of £4m being stated when the £100,000,000 cost of the Centre was queried. (Annual savings of £4m over 25 years was cl;aimed to mean that the Centre would pay for itself).

A fuller account of service costs pressures to 2017 can be found HERE . They include the transition of children with disabilities to adult social care, 'transitional clients (with learning disabilities) living longer into adult age', increased numbers of older people with dementia, increase in demand for children's social care placements, price increases from the West London Waste Authority and largest of all at £2.45m in 2013-14 for an increase in homeless demand as a result of the Local Housing Allowance changes. £0.3m is lost as a result of the Coalition's 28% reduction of the DWP grant for administering Housing Benefit and Council Tax benefit. There is an increased cost of £0.75m for youth offending services with a rather hopeful suggestion that this might be reduced in future. I rather doubt that unemployment, benefit cuts,  homelessness and continuing austerity will enable that hope to be fulfilled.

All in all a dismal picture and which once again raises the issue of when will the Council decide 'enough is enough;' and go on the offensive against the Coalition and refuse to deliver their cuts.

Tokyngton Library to be sold to Islamic Cultural Association

Council officers are recommending that the Brent Executive agree to sell off the closed down Tokyngton Library in Monks Park to the Islamic Cultural Association for an undisclosed sum. A bid by Tokyngton Homes is kept in reserve in case the preferred sale does not go through.

Tanks at Brent Town Hall on Monday?

 

It is likely to be a busy and rather tense weekend in Brent Labour circles as final figures are totted up to see whether a potential plan to topple Muhammed Butt has enough support.

Action now would enable a new leader to take over before the final decisions are made on the 2013-14 budget with controversies remaining over the level of Council Tax, the London Living Wage and departmental budgets.

As I write it seems that the threat to Butt's has diminished slightly over the last few days but the arithmetic is very tight. He defeated Ann John by only one vote last May so in theory it only requires one vote to switch.

Rather than a left/right division it appears that this is almost a generation split with reports that the move has been spearheaded by a senior councillor and ex-member of the Executive who had a reputation as a left-winger in the 1980s.

During his period in office Muhammed Butt has promoted younger councillors such as Krupesh Hirani and Michael Pavey and built up a team of younger supporters whilst at the same time retaining the support of some Labour heavyweights.

As Brent Town Hall witnesses the last of its dramas (or will it all fizzle out?) the new Civic Centre awaits the triumphant entrance of the Leader.

Watch this space...

Meanwhile the battle for the Labour nomination for parliamentary candidate for Brent Central is hotting up with up to six names in the hat according to reliable sources.  Cllrs Val Kalwala, Choudry and Mashari have all been mentioned. The latter would benefit if Labour decides on an all-woman short-list and she would be pitted against Dawn Butler.

Brent Council Tax unchanged but rents increase in 2013-14 budget

The Budget Report going before the Brent Executive on February 11th recommends no change in the barometer Band D Council Tax and little change in the other rates.  This decision contrasts with early budget documentation that built in Council Tax rises over the next three years.  Since then Eric Pickles has declared that rises above 2% have to be approved by a local referendum and attacked Councils who were considering raising the tax to protect services. His mix of bribery and threatened opprobrium seems to have done the trick.

Brent Housing Partnership tenants will pay an average rent increase of 3.74% and there will also be rises in service charges. The table below shows that almost 4,000 households will face an increase of nearly £5 a week or £250 annually raising an additional million pounds.  Hillside Housing Trust (Stonebridge) rents will rise by 3.1% on average.

The new approach to social housing is explicit in the report's comment from the Brent Housing Partnership:

BHP agrees with the recommendation to increase rents on average by 3.74%. We recognise that this will place an additional financial burden on the 32% of Brent Council tenants that are currently are not in receipt of housing benefit. However BHP recognises that Brent is now operating a self financing housing business and that this increase is necessary to ensure the success of the Council's business plan.

Willesden Green regeneration: 'Never mind the deadline, let's make a decision'

Brent Planning Committee is to consider the planning application for the Willesden Green Cultural Centre on February 13th despite the Public Inquiry for the Willesden Town Centre continuing until February 14th.  This is also the final date for submissions on the planning application.

The Council get over this little problem by recommending that the Committee (which is supposed to be independent of the Council) grant consent in principle and delegate the final decision to the Deputy Director of Planning and Development who will make the decision:

(a) taking into account any further representations received on or before the 14th February 2013;
(b) any direction by the Mayor of London to refuse the application. In accordance with Article 5 of the Town & Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order 2008 following the Council’s determination of this application, the Mayor is allowed 14 days to decide whether to allow the draft decision to proceed unchanged or direct the Council under Article 6 to refuse the application;
(c) Satisfactory prior completion of a Section 106(s) under the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 and/or other form(s) of agreement/undertaking in order to secure the S106 matters as detailed in this report

and for the conservation area consent:

 (b) any direction by the National Planning Casework Unit, the Secretary of State having considered the matter, to refuse the application

The planning application reports can be read on the Keep Willesden Green blog  HERE